Microsoft halts rollout of Windows 10 KB5001649 emergency update
bleepingcomputer.com
bleepingcomputer.com
They thought they could push toward the frequent cadence competitors like Google have hit with Chrome, but they don't have the code foundations or organizational culture to make that work.
Random updates borking your PC and unwanted telemetry that's whackamole to keep disabled are two reasons I avoid Windows 10 like the plague. When they finally change course and release Windows 11 maybe I'll come back and have a look.
- After the release of the March 2021 Windows 10 KB5000802 and KB5000808 cumulative updates, users began experiencing "APC_INDEX_MISMATCH for win32kfull.sys" BSOD crashes when printing.
- Microsoft released the emergency out-of-band update KB5001567 ... while this update fixed the bug causing Windows 10 to crash when printing, it did not resolve the other issues users experienced ... missing text and graphics.
- To fix the remaining issues, Microsoft released a second OOB emergency update on March 18th, known as KB5001649 ... it replaced the previously offered KB5001567 update.
- Starting today, Microsoft appears to have paused the rollout of KB5001649 ... devices are now offered the KB5001567 update released earlier this week instead.
- Microsoft has not provided any official reason for the pause, and the KB5001649 support bulletin has not been updated with any information. Furthermore, the update is still available via the Microsoft Update Catalog, just no longer via Windows Update.
- The rollout has likely been paused due to the many reports [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] of users receiving a "We couldn't install this update, but you can try again (0x80070541)" error ... Another possible reason is that people are still crashing when printing with this update installed.
Microsoft decided it was worth more to their brand to ensure people were getting legitimate copies of Windows with updates than the money they could get from trying to squeeze home user pirates.
> Most new PCs sold in stores today come with the product key permanently embedded in the firmware. Instead of printing the product key on a sticker where it could be easily stolen or smudged off, manufacturers are now opting to store it in the UEFI or BIOS. The firmware is located in ROM on the motherboard, which means if you upgrade other components like your hard drive, RAM, graphics card, or even your CPU, you should still be able to activate Windows.
> If you reinstall Windows, it will communicate with the firmware to install the embedded key. There is no need to retrieve the key yourself. If you want to retrieve it, you can do so by running the following command in cmd or Windows PowerShell:
> ...
-- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10...
Getting rid of the team that used to run tests on real hardware certainly didn't help.
>Microsoft laid off almost the entire Windows Test team as it moved the focus from three different systems -- Windows, Windows Mobile and Xbox -- to a single system. The company moved most of the testing to virtual machines and this meant according to Berg that tests were no longer conducted on real and diverse hardware configurations for the most part.
The teams ran the tests on "real" hardware in a lab through automated testing. The machines had different hardware components, e.g. processors, hard drives, video and sound cards, and other components to cover a wide range of system configurations, and this meant that bugs that affected only certain hardware components or configurations were detected in the process.
https://www.ghacks.net/2019/09/23/former-microsoft-employee-...
They replaced it with the largest team they could find, their paying customers!
If you think about it, if an update reaches 1.000.000 users, and 0.1% percent of them have an issue with it, that's 1.000 people who have to waste hours getting their system back up (and potentially recover lost data, if it's even possible).
They did... then, AIUI, they eliminated the entire department... and here we are.